


So caught up

by Lilliburlero



Category: The Comfortable Courtesan - Madame C- C-
Genre: Diary/Journal, Gen, Pre-Canon, Shippy Gen, Skinny Dipping, Swans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-19 00:52:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9410351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilliburlero/pseuds/Lilliburlero
Summary: Mr W— Y—'s want of due caution concerning the speciesC. Olor, illustrat'd & explain'd.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nineveh_uk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nineveh_uk/gifts).



With only a desultory knock, for form’s sake, Chris strolled into Pam’s office, brandishing a newspaper.

‘Crusty Campbell approves of us, anyway.’ 

‘Crust—what? Who?’ 

‘Jim Campbell. _N.B._ Back page of the _TLS_.’ 

Chris flung that publication on top of a stack of unmarked scripts, SLW308: Narrative and the Urban Context. ‘Third column, half way down. Not sure it’s a _recommendation_ , exactly. Did you read him a few weeks ago, whingeing about someone using “she” as a default pronoun? Had me looking around for the TARDIS that had brought us back to the 70s. _Impact_ , though, innit?’ 

‘ “It is encouraging, if sadly rare, to make the discovery that the inmates of a department of Social Science in one of our post-plateglass institutions of higher learning are capable of cogent communication with the rest of humanity,” Pam read, adding with a roll of her eyes, ‘What a refreshingly original observation. " _Fugitive Lives_ , ed. Pamela L. Marlow and Chris Willis, Palgrave Macmillan blah blah, is an absorbing collection of annotated extracts from memoirs and diaries held by the Centre for Life-Writing at the University of Streweminster, which archive specialises in the preservation of quotidian accounts by uncelebrated writers. Though we might lament the replacement of the fustian ‘biography’ and ‘autobiography’ by a hyphenated term whose Anglo-Saxon pedigree scarcely compensates for either its unfamiliarity to the general reader or its surpassing ugliness, this anthology is otherwise astonishingly free of obfuscatory jargon and identity politics alike—” Hang on, did he actually read it before he disappeared up his own arse, d’you think? You know, _our_ book?’ 

‘The one that doesn’t contain a single piece of writing by a white, straight, cis man? You were quite right, though. It's much more fun this way, rather than making a point of it in public.’ 

‘Well, no, hang on though, there _are_ the W— Y— extracts.’ 

‘Hm. I don’t think you can claim W— Y— was _straight_ exactly. Not for definite. More, just—’ 

‘—Clueless?’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Documentary evidence of J.C.'s objection, in this year of 2017 CE, to the use of a default feminine pronoun is under subscriber lock, but I have not committed a libel upon that gentleman.


	2. Chapter 2

**Undergraduates Bathing at Grantchester, c. 1805**

> The diarist known only as W— Y— left a tantalisingly fragmentary record of what became, from a promising start, a precarious and sometimes distinctly disreputable life. Born c.1785, he attended the University of Cambridge in the early years of the nineteenth century. His journal offers no evidence as to college affiliation, and he seems not to have taken a degree. After leaving university, he appears to have pursued a political career, but either he did not keep a diary during this period of his life, or it is lost. He had literary ambitions: a handful of undated entries reveal a fear of entanglement in a plagiarism scandal, and express violently hostile sentiments regarding an influential lady whom he calls Madame Featherwitt, possibly a patron who had disappointed him. There are also hints that he may at times have acted as a paid informant to the Home Office, an occupation for which he was temperamentally unsuited, and which may have hastened his descent into mental illness and addiction. The troubling final pages of the manuscript narrate (with vivid, if amateurish, illustrations) frightening hallucinations induced by a cocktail of cannabis, laudanum and alcohol; they are reproduced as plates 9 and 10. His subsequent fate is unknown. This extract, however, dates from W— Y—'s happy youth, and notes a visit to the bathing-place later known as Byron’s Pool in the company of a fellow student, also unidentified. (CW) 

June 1st—. The weather continuing considerable sultry, P. suggested an Excursion to the bathing-pool at _Grant-chester_. We went well-prepared with a _pique-nique_ of pasties, puffs and sweetmeats, as well as two bottles of _Hock_ , but on climbing from the water perceav’d our wretch of a Gyp had omitt’d Towells, and we must perforce lay in our Skins to dry. P. complain’d of my pipe, saying not only was the _Shag_ of my choize wholly noxious, but since the accoutrements of what degenerate Modernity was pleas’d to call _Civilization_ rendered the Heroick state of Antiquity entire ludicrous, I would oblige him by extinguishing it. I refus’d, and he attempting to snatch it from me, we wrestled in a manner which sure would not have satisfy’d the stern code of the _Palaestra_ , but satisfy’d our giddy Humour much, and in course of which my little Meerschaum was not just put out but offered as tribute to _Camus_. 

P. laugh’d somewhat immoderate and exclaim’d, Ah! Who hath reft (quoth he) my dearest pledge? 

Ass, say’d I, and proposed push him in again, that he might dive for it. But with _footing slow_ he preserv’d himself  & ‘twas well he did, for at that moment appear’d from behind a clump of sedge a Swan with a train of five Cygnetts, little balls of _Ash_ afloat. They peck’d very frequent at the water, lifting their heads then to reassure them their Parent was still nigh, all the while twitt'ring most shrill, like School-girls given Holiday. 

Oh, cry'd P., low  & hoarse, they are hatch’d! 

And we sat ourselves to contemplate 'em. 

He had, he said, observed this _Cob_ , who he thought a Widower, his _Pen_ being nowhere to be seen, sitting on the clutch not four days before, so this was like the Cygnetts’ first _outing_. It is a wonder he was not rous’d to defence of the Brood by our shouts and scuffles. And a mercy. 

When I was a boy, I whispered, and went to see the _Swan-Upping_ at _Henley_ , my father told me to stay well clear, for they could break a fellow’s arm. 

A small child’s certainly, he reply’d, which was no doubt your reverend sire’s purpose in saying it. Not, I think, a grown man’s. But natheless a cob-swan is fearsome antagonist enough when one has britches _on_. His gesture drew my eye to that part of a man on which another’s gaze should never rest but lightly  & I blush’d, for as the Constable of Messina says, _Comparisons are odorous_. 

Tyring, one swanling endeavour’d to mount its papa’s back, at aukward length succeeding. The family turn’d for their nest downstream. 

Would’t not, say'd I somewhat hurry’d, be a fine subject for Verses? 

I meant something in the character of a Reflexion upon Paternal Benevolence, display’d to us by benign  & _Heuretique_ Nature, but P. mistook me and say’d, Oh pooh, has been much done over. He rolled onto his Belly, crossing his legs in the air behind him  & look’d at me very direckt, tho’ shading his eyes from a shaft of sunlight that came thoro’ the willows, adding, I would be but an indifferent Leda, would I not? 

My throat seem’d of a sudden dry, and I reach’d for my cup, to find it drain’d. Sure even in that posture, with the distinguishing marks of the Sexes largely hid, & despite his long black eyelashes & plump red lips, slender waist and the gracefull curve at the _base_ of his Spine, none could take him for one of the _Fair_. 

No, he continu’d, pouring for me more Hock, ‘tis not as a Swan that the father of gods and men, ἀργι-κέραυνος, would make himself known to me, but quite another _Bird_. 

After a moment I caught his _meaning_ , tho’ not entire surpriz’d, I was much abash’d, & knew not what to say to this Tender of profoundest trust...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gyp: college servant at Cambridge.
> 
> 'Ah! Who hath reft (quoth he) my dearest pledge?' 'footing slow', 'reverend sire': all from Milton, 'Lycidas'.
> 
> 'Swan-Upping': is a [thing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_Upping).
> 
> 'Constable of Messina': Dogberry, malapropist-in-chief from _Much Ado About Nothing_.
> 
> ἀργι-κέραυνος: god of the dazzling bolt, Zeus.

**Author's Note:**

> Fic title from W.B. Yeats, 'Leda and the Swan'.


End file.
